Lawless and the Devil of Euston Square

by William Sutton

  I shook my head, quietly incensed. “You were afraid Miss Villiers might unravel your schemes?”

  “Miss Ruth has a sharp mind,” he nodded, looking at me squarely. “But you can rely on us in future.”

  “You don’t know how much I’ve worked out, wee fellow.” I smiled. “If I didn’t owe you my life—” I hesitated. “Look. I know your lot have been working down the sewers. I also know that Mr Bazalgette considers their contributions invaluable.”

  “Invaluable is right,” he grinned.

  “He tells me you orchestrated the Great Stink.”

  “Don’t like to brag.” He chuckled. “Shuffler was on good terms with the mudlarks, see. We were able to concentrate certain effects. Our friendly parliamentarians wouldn’t cough up the dough for Baz’s scheme, not until our aromatic treat. After all, there ain’t no stink on their country estates, is there? Poor Mr Disraeli and his delicate nose. I heard he spewed up on the speaker. Still, Baz got his cash, eh?”

  I clapped. “Future generations will venerate your contribution, I’m sure.”

  “I’m hoping for a brass plaque,” he nodded. “Come on, Watchman. What’s your game?”

  I sighed. “Worm, I shall always be grateful to you—”

  “But you’re going to send us down.”

  “I’ve done my best,” I insisted, “I’ve protected Numpty and his chums, but—”

  “The bleedin’ thefts.” He clicked his tongue. “Is that all? I told Smiler it was more trouble than it was worth. People are robbed blind every day on the stocks and shares. We lift a couple of footstools from a baronet and all London’s agog. I ask you.”

  “You upset a lot of people.”

  “I should hope so. Come on, Watchman. I actually thought better of you.”

  Worm was right. I had told myself that Wardle was dealing with the thefts because he could sniff bigger intrigue lurking behind them. Yet house thefts happen every day. The outcry was disproportionate only because it affected the rich and famous.

  “Anyway, Smiler’s dead and Numpty’s halfway to France. You going to arrest me as an accomplice? Because I don’t know nothing about it.”

  “Then how do you know Smiler was involved?” I sighed. The poor boy was shaking. “Worm, you look terrible. What have you been doing to yourself? I’ll get you a bite to eat and a cup of tea, shall I?”

  He looked at me as if I were mad. “What kind of lilly law are you, Watchman? You’re meant to be roughing me up, not feeding me sandwiches.” He tutted. “You won’t get nowhere behaving like this.”

  “And why should it matter to you,” I said sharply, “where I get to?”

  “No secret about it,” he grinned. “I likes having friends in high places.”

  “Like Wardle.”

  “Not exactly like Wardle.” His smile soured. “Speak of the devil.”

  “Worm,” said Wardle, slamming the door shut behind him. “What a pleasure.”

  “All mine, Inspector, old cove,” Worm replied. But he avoided Wardle’s eye, and there was an aggressive tone in his voice I hadn’t heard before. “To what do I owe today’s little invitation?”

  “Shut up until you’re spoken to,” Wardle barked. “There’s something afoot, Watchman. Disgruntled toffs waiting on Coxhill to give the word where and when, only he’s nowhere to be found, and there’s sleuthhounds baying for his blood. You’ll want to steer him clear of Coxhill’s type.” It surprised me that he spoke of Bertie in front of Worm. He did not seem to realise how deeply our little friend was involved in it all. “Now, have you emptied this scoundrel’s pockets?”

  “Must we really—”

  “Have you or haven’t you?” He stared at Worm as if he were any old criminal.

  Worm glanced at me. “I could have told you about him, Watchman, right from the start. And we were having such a civilised little chat, Inspector.” He narrowed his eyes and said, with a strange emphasis, “Reminiscing.”

  “Shut your mouth,” said Wardle and pulled Worm up on to his feet. “Empty them.”

  Worm returned his gaze evenly. “With what, pray, am I being charged?”

  “Empty your pockets, child!” Wardle noticed my dismay. “I don’t want him making things worse for himself, trying something foolish.”

  “Only, by my understanding of the law, Inspector,” Worm continued, “I’m habeas corpus till charged and innocent unless proven guilty. Ain’t that so, Watchman?”

  I waited for Wardle to explode.

  “Or is that law only for flash harries and royalty?”

  For a moment, I thought Wardle was going to cuff Worm about the head. Instead, he bent down and grabbed Worm’s ankles. He upended him and shook him like he was a rag doll. Worm chose not to struggle. He only raised his hands to stop his head from banging on the floor. Various items tumbled from his waistcoat and trousers on to the floor: a watch chain, pencil and paper, some coinage.

  Wardle dropped him carelessly to the ground. “Poor pickings today, Worm? This pencil looks familiar. When did you filch that?”

  Worm picked himself up and sat down, scowling. “I only take from those who has spare.”

  “Literary ambitions, have we?” said Wardle, unravelling the scrap of paper. “Oh dear. Still picking up the alphabet, I see.”

  He handed it to me and I looked at the sheet inscribed with familiar symbols: Skelton’s cipher. I frowned at Worm but held my tongue.

  Wardle spoke rapidly. “I’ll tell you why you’re here. Because you’re a thief. A liar. A menace to society. And when I’ve left this place,” he glanced at me, “I don’t want to hear distant rumours of you and your misdeeds. Watchman tells me your lot had a hand in the skeleton thefts.”

  Worm looked at me, without accusation. “Don’t know nothing.”

  Wardle grimaced. “Numpty, wasn’t it? And this Smiler fellow.”

  “Who?” Worm raised his eyebrows. “Oh, the cove what got stuffed?”

  Wardle sighed. “All right, Worm. If you’re going to be like that. What about this friend of yours, Skelton?”

  We were a long time sitting without saying a word. Worm seemed to be considering his options. When he finally spoke, it was in slow deliberate syllables. “I—don’t—know—nothing. Get it?”

  Wardle snorted. I felt again he was about to hit the boy. I found myself trying to appease him. “Worm, we know how they did it. In through the sewers before each stretch was opened. No trace left but the bones. I even know why. I know about Skelton’s father. I know about the Poor House in ’46.”

  Worm looked at me. “Well, well. Pleased you’ve taken an interest, old cove.”

  “Shut up,” said Wardle. He looked at me pointedly. “And the other nonsense?”

  “Why the clocks, Worm?” I said. “All those stolen mechanisms.”

  “I haven’t the foggiest what you’re on about. Told you. I wasn’t in on it. What if Numpty was? Am I my brother’s keeper? You’ve got nothing on me, however you try and fit me up.”

  I looked at him in admiration. He was right. We had nothing to incriminate him. Yet I knew he was lying. I knew it and Worm knew that I knew. I knew that Berwick had used the mechanisms to set off the spouts, even if I couldn’t see why he needed so many. Wardle, by contrast, didn’t really care. He just wanted someone blamed. He wanted it all done and dusted. “You’ve been leading us on, Worm,” I said. “Withholding messages. Sending me on wild-goose chases.”

  “Did you like that note? Wrote it myself.”

  “Don’t give us that,” said Wardle. “He doesn’t know how to write, Watchman.”

  “I’ve better schooling than you,” Worm replied with quiet dignity.

  Wardle snorted again. “Clever game you’ve played. Little turncoat. It’s over now.”

  “Is it?” Worm murmured. “Yes, I s’pose so.”

  “Why you did it I don’t know,” said Wardle. “Bloody fortune we paid you as well.”

  “And did I ever let you down? Aside from one or two l
etters, that is.”

  Wardle leaned forward and whispered through clenched teeth. “What line did he feed you? Pay better than us, did he? Spill the beans and we’ll see you right.”

  “Why,” Worm chuckled, “has the great detective not worked it out?”

  Wardle tried to govern his agitation, but the boy just kept laughing.

  “All your cleverness and you can’t see it. Still, that’s how Mr Skelton wanted it.”

  “We know enough,” I said, annoyed now too. “Shuffler and his toshers. The deal with Bazalgette. Smiler and Skelton blackmailing Coxhill. And Hunt…” I trailed off. “Forget the clocks. I know what mischief you were up to. But what’s this about your new home?”

  Worm eyed me keenly. For the first time, I felt he was discomfited. Why? What was there still to hide? His carelessness seemed somehow affected. “I don’t know about no clocks,” he said.

  “Enough,” Wardle snorted. “He’s a nobody whose floozy ran off with a toff.”

  “With the heir to the throne.”

  “What’s that to do with you?”

  “It’s plenty to do with us,” Worm answered quietly. “They killed Shuffler.”

  “Hunt,” I said. “It was Hunt killed Shuffler. He killed Smiler too, and Skelton.” The name hung in the room for a moment. I glanced at Wardle. “Come on, Worm.”

  “I can trust him, can I?” Worm said to me. “Deal with paupers same as princes? If you know so much, why all the fuss at Big Ben? Don’t you know who the Monstrous Rotundity is?”

  “I’m about to find out,” Wardle growled. “I’ll happily beat it out of you.”

  “You should know, of all people, you spend enough time wiping his arse.”

  “You’re going to tell us about your treasonous little plot.” Wardle leaned forward. “Or I’m going to take out your windpipe and tie it round your bleeding neck.”

  Worm burst out laughing. “It’s so touching to hear you, Inspector. Such loyal sentiments, don’t you think, Watchman? So deeply felt. I hope it’s a hefty pension you’re getting, because if you did it from love and loyalty you must be disappointed. The Queen an old maid, one prince dead and the next an embarrassment.”

  “Don’t give me your slander.”

  “Hang me, then,” Worm chirped, “but I’ll raise a few eyebrows in the dock on the way. Bought and sold for royal gold.” He leaned forward, as if testing Wardle’s limits. “Or is your devotion waning? The Prince is only following family traditions, poor chap. Let’s hope he doesn’t go pox-ridden loopy and all.”

  Wardle struck the boy a savage blow across the cheek.

  Worm called out, more in surprise than pain. He touched the back of his hand against his lip and gazed at the blood in puzzlement. “Sorry, Inspector, did I say something to upset you? Hope not.” And, blow it all, he winked at me. “Because that’s nothing beside what I’ve got left to say.”

  “Don’t push your luck, son.”

  “You see?” Worm looked at me, maniacally exultant. “I tell the truth and he threatens me. I haven’t even mentioned Roxton Codswallop yet.”

  Wardle stiffened, as if in strange fascination.

  The boy was irrepressible, filled with wild carelessness. “Did it seem odd, Watchman, how quick those hydrollah-rolical incidents was passed over? To me it seemed a little odd. No charges pressed. No outcry in the papers. You’d have thought the royal inspector might have paid especial attention, what with the Prince being close by and the hydrollah-rolical proprietor a particular stooge of his.”

  Wardle bristled, as if trying to cow him into silence.

  “Unless,” Worm persisted with a look of mock surprise, as if he were just thinking it through, “that proprietor made it in your interest to overlook the incident. That would be shrewd. Whatever other qualities we may attribute to him, he is shrewd, this proprietor. Devious, too. Those insurance claims. Those fires. Dividends paid out of capital investments, which is fraudulent practice, I’m told.”

  “What do you know?”

  “Sorry, Inspector. You must be concerned for your investments. Scored a hit, have I? I’m not suggesting for a moment such perks would make you act with anything less than integrity. You must be due a payment next month, eh? How much does a blind eye cost these days? You’ll have to admit, Inspector, that’s more crookeder than anything my Worms done.”

  Wardle grunted.

  “So it seems to me,” Worm went on brightly, “that you have rather more to hide than we do. That royal nurse you sent down, for instance. Before my time, but we both know that certain factors didn’t merit a mention in court. I mayn’t have grown up with maids but I’d have thought it ain’t proper to beat ’em. Wouldn’t you, Watchman?”

  “She murdered her children,” Wardle roared.

  “She was crazed,” said Worm.

  “She’d have gone to gaol anyway, whether they were mentioned or not.”

  “Like Mr John Sadleir?”

  Wardle froze. “Speak ill of the dead, would you?”

  “Wouldn’t dream of it, old cove.” Worm turned to me. “Heard of the gent, Watchman?”

  “The Hampstead financier. Suicide.” I said. “He’s told me.”

  “Has he?” Worm nodded. “Speaking ill of the living ain’t so bad, is it, Inspector? See, contrary to what the coroner’s report might say, Mr Sadleir is not dead, and, what is more, your inspector knows it.”

  Wardle seemed to shrink into his chair. “You can’t prove that,” he whispered.

  “By the way,” Worm chirped, “he sends his regards from Canada. Enquires if you’re still getting the cheques. Hopes your wife is well.”

  The inspector exploded. He threw the table aside and picked Worm up by the lapels of his jacket.

  “Go on and kill me,” said Worm with heart-breaking resolve. “There’s others know.”

  “I will,” Wardle shouted, “and who’ll remember you then?” In a flash, he had him up against the wall. To my horror, he shook him, knocking the boy against the stone, over and over.

  And I stood by and did nothing. Worm curled up, making no effort to fight him off. He had a strange look on his face that seemed to say, I knew it would come to this. Worst of all, it seemed somehow that Wardle was doing it all for my benefit.

  “For God’s sake!” I started forward.

  Wardle stopped for a moment.

  The boy looked up, wild-eyed. There was blood on his hair, blood around his mouth. “Beating up an innocent?” he said with desperate triumph. “I could have you arrested.”

  Wardle laughed. “And who do you think will believe you?”

  Worm smiled. “That ain’t so smart, Inspector.”

  Wardle tightened his grip.

  “Oh, beat me all you like. Kill me. I wouldn’t be the first to die in order to hush up police peccadilloes. But whatever you say, I know that he’ll tell the truth.” Worm nodded in my direction. “Don’t looked so shocked, Watchman, old cove. That’s why we chose you. I can depend on you, can’t I?”

  We all stood frozen for a moment. Then Wardle redoubled his fury. With an animal roar, he smashed Worm’s head against the wall, and laid into him, pummelling him with his fists as if to pound the life out of him.

  Before I knew what I was doing, I had pulled Wardle off him. I picked him up, clean off the ground. I span him around, and threw him against the wall beside Worm, threw him so forcefully all the breath went out of him.

  I let go, frightened of what I might do. He collapsed at my feet. I felt like a puppy who has opened his eyes to find himself a full-grown dog, to realise how lightly he could tear his own master to pieces.

  Wardle cowered beneath me, clutching at his chest with one hand and holding the other ineffectually above him.

  “Is this the thanks I get?” he muttered.

  “It’s you,” I said with disgust. “You’ve done it to yourself.”

  Wardle looked up at me, suddenly old and tired. He picked himself off the floor and stumbled to a chair, then
put his head in his hands and began to shake.

  “Good God,” I said to myself. “Is there nobody pure of heart?”

  “I know one cove who is, more or less,” said Worm. “I’ll tell you about him, if you like.”

  WORM’S TALE

  We sat in silence. It seemed like an age passed by.

  “I might as well tell,” Worm began on a sudden. He stroked his chin and nodded to himself. “Now that we’re at the final curtain. What harm in it? Mr Skelton wanted it secret, but that’s all wrong. I want people to understand.

  “We had it all planned. The underground train was meant to be opening in May, you’ll recall. All the great and good, not just of London but the world, would be banqueting down the station. Has a thing about these banquets, does Mr Skelton. So we planned to set off another of Coxcomb’s engines. Flood the place. Have a few princes and presidents swimming for their lives, you know. See how the rest of us feel.

  “Best laid plans and that. They kept postponing and so we did too, until Mr Skelton took ill in a mishap below ground. Rescuing the Professor, it was. The two of them all but drownded. Mr Skelton decided he’d better not hang about. He’d move it forward, do it at the Exhibition.

  “He heard Coxcomb banging on at his club—Mr Skelton’s a member of several clubs, you see. Codswallop’s given to bragging, as you know, and he was boasting how he would throw a grand party for the Prince. Now, Mr Skelton enjoys the odd light-hearted deception. So he dons a disguise, quick as you like, and sidles up to Foxhole. Posing as a well-connected gourmand, he offers to do him a slap-up feast there in the Greenhouse, after the Exhibition closes. Give the Prince a treat, impress all and sundry, do his business a favour.

  “Cotswold swallows it hook, line and sinker. We go along to nail down the details. We send in Smiler, as he knows both of us. I suppose the mongrel, Hunt, can sniff that something ain’t right. Mr Skelton would have called it off. Smiler ain’t so smart. He’s greedy, and he must’ve dropped a hint. You know, that we knew everything. We hear a bit of argy-bargy. Me and Berwick looks at each other. ‘I’ll see what’s happened,’ he says. ‘If I’m not out in five minutes, scarper.’